


Family Business

by Riona



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s04e03 In the Beginning, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 15:04:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2072754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riona/pseuds/Riona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The demon has taken everyone Mary cared about, but apparently there's still someone who cares about her. Why is this Dean guy so invested in her life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Business

She... isn’t really taking much in, after the demon snaps John’s neck. Everything feels like it’s happening in slow motion, but somehow it’s still too fast for her to think.

The demon’s making her an offer, and she can’t take it. She knows that much. She can hear her dad’s voice in her head: you don’t make deals with demons. Stupidest thing you can ever do.

But her parents are gone and her future is gone and John is dead in her lap. There’s nothing left in her life. What else is she supposed to do?

She looks up at the thing in her father’s body. Draws in a breath.

And then a car door slams and someone’s running toward them, and the demon sighs and rolls her father’s eyes and then screams out of his mouth in a cloud of black smoke.

“No!” Mary shouts, ashamed of herself for not being relieved. “Come back!”

The footsteps skid to a halt beside her, and when she looks up through her tears she sees that it’s Dean, the hunter from before.

“Mary,” he says, breathlessly, “tell me you didn’t—”

And then his eyes fall on John and his whole face changes and he takes a stumbling step back.

“No,” he says. “No, no, that’s not possible.”

He stopped her from making the deal, and she doesn’t know whether to hate him or thank him. For now, all she can do is bury her face in John’s shoulder and sob.

“How am I even still here?” Dean says, soft and broken, and then, “Oh, God. Sammy. It can’t go like this.”

-

She just stays there for a while, sitting on the ground, cradling John’s body. She’s vaguely aware that Dean is still there, leaning against John’s ridiculous car. She doesn’t know what he’s waiting to say to her, but she knows she won’t be able to face it.

Eventually, she braces herself and looks over at him. He catches her eye.

“Can I talk to you?” he asks.

She doesn’t even have the energy to shrug. She manages a little twitch of her shoulders.

Dean moves to crouch by her side. His eyes stray to her dad, and he looks away quickly.

“Mary,” he says, after a moment. “Your mom...”

“I already know,” she says. She can’t cry any more; she just feels empty. “The demon told me.”

Dean takes in a breath. “I’m sorry.”

For a while she just sits there, stroking John’s hair and staring at nothing.

“He offered me a deal,” she says. “For John. I don’t know what he wanted. He just asked for permission to come to my house in ten years.”

“Okay, you cannot take that deal,” Dean says.

It’s what she was expecting. Hunters don’t like dealing with demons, and they don’t like people being brought back from the dead. It’s just... some stupid schoolgirl part of her somehow felt like maybe Dean would understand.

“We’ll find something else,” Dean says. He reaches out to touch her shoulder. “Okay? We’ll figure out a way to bring him back. But it will not involve that yellow-eyed son of a bitch.”

-

Dean isn’t sure how he’s still here, but it’s something he clings to. He didn’t just blip out of existence the moment his dad died. That means John is going to come back, right? Sammy’s still going to be born. It’ll happen somehow.

That’s what he tells himself, but, honestly, it’s not like he’s some time-travel expert. Maybe the future really has changed. Maybe he’s stuck here in the seventies now, no home time to go back to. Maybe Sam’s been written out of existence.

He buries Deanna and Samuel and John in shallow graves, unmarked but easy to find. Easy to dig out of. It kills him to lay his father to rest a second goddamn time (or a first, or whatever the fuck you say when time travel is involved), but he can’t exactly ask Mary to help out.

Mary feels she can’t stay in her parents’ house right now, which isn’t a surprise. They stop by long enough for her to pick up weapons, salt, some old books on hunting, her parents’ cash savings.

Then they drive.

-

They book into a motel a couple towns over, far enough from Lawrence to be sure Mary won’t be recognised if people start wondering where John and the Campbells have gone. It feels weird to have actual legitimate money. They can stay here for a while, if Mary needs time to handle things; they don’t have to move on before someone uncovers the credit card fraud.

Of course, the plan is that she won’t need time to handle things. The plan is to get John back.

They almost ended up staying at a different motel, one sitting right by a crossroads. Dean said he didn’t like the look of the place; truth is he didn’t want Mary to get any ideas. But he made a mental note of where it was.

That night, when Mary is sleeping, Dean gets into the car.

-

“Dean Van Halen,” the demon says, pacing around him in a slow, wide circle. “Aren’t _you_ interesting?”

“I like to think so,” Dean says.

“You see, we like to keep an eye on hunters,” she says. “You’d think they’d stay away from crossroads, but they’re actually our best customers. Always good to know their pressure points. But _you_ , Dean... you just appeared out of nowhere. Who are you, exactly?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Dean says. “I got a soul to trade.”

“Is that so?” the demon asks, folding her arms.

“John Winchester,” Dean says. “Samuel Campbell. Deanna Campbell. You bring them back.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Unless you have three souls, you’re gonna have to pick a favourite.”

It’s what he was expecting, but he had to try. “John, then. He comes back breathing, and—”

He almost chokes on the words. Hell is all he can think of, and he can’t send himself back there. He can’t.

He has to. If Dad stays dead, Sam will never exist.

“You take me instead,” he says. “In ten years.”

Maybe they won’t find him, he thinks, desperately. Castiel’s not gonna leave him here in the seventies, right? What are the hellhounds supposed to chow down on in 1983? Or is his four-year-old self gonna get ripped apart?

It’d probably save everyone a lot of trouble. He doesn’t want to put his parents through losing their kid, but this way they don’t have the yellow-eyed demon breathing down their necks. Mom doesn’t die in the nursery. Dad doesn’t trade his soul away. Sam doesn’t have to deal with this ‘chosen one’ crap.

“Hmm. Well, mystery man, if those are your terms...” She brushes her fingers over his arm, and then pauses. Looks up at his face. “Okay, now I _really_ want to know who you are.”

“Because I’m so ruggedly handsome?”

“Because you have fingerprints all over your soul,” she says. “Hate to tell you this, but I don’t take second-hand goods. You don’t get to sell your soul twice. That’s not how it works.”

“What?” Dean asks. “No. No, you have to bring him back.”

“I don’t _have_ to do anything. What I’m seeing, Dean, is what you might call a bad credit rating. Souls are a good investment because they’re eternal. It’s why we can offer ten years, no charge; we’re looking at the long term. I don’t know how, but you walked out on your last deal. That’s not something I look for in a client. I’m sure you’ll understand.”

“Five years.”

“You think you can bargain with me?” she asks, laughing. “That’s cute. There’s no way you can afford a resurrection, but I guess I can stretch to two weeks and a burrito.”

For an instant, when it really sinks in that she won’t take his soul, that he won’t be going back to Hell, Dean is actually relieved. He fucking hates himself.

-

It’s a few days before Mary is thinking clearly enough to ask herself the obvious question: why is Dean sticking around? He showed up less than a week ago, they spoke three or four times, and now... what? He’s decided to become her personal grief counsellor? She knows he has other things he could be doing; he’s a hunter, and there are always things to hunt. Why does he give a crap about her?

The obvious answer is that he’s aiming for her pants, but somehow that doesn’t seem right. He’s never flirted with her, or if he has she hasn’t noticed it, and she knows from watching him interact with waitresses that he’s not exactly subtle. It makes her feel like she’s his little sister or something, someone who’s totally off the table. Sometimes she catches him looking at her strangely, though. Maybe he’s holding back out of respect for John.

Eventually, she asks him straight out. “Why are you staying with me? I mean, I’m not saying I want you to leave, but you shouldn’t have to put your life on hold for some girl you barely know. I’ll be okay.”

He looks surprised for a moment, as if he never questioned it, as if staying with her was the only thing he could possibly have done. “Well, I wasn’t gonna leave you on your own after...” He hesitates. “I kind of feel like we have a lot in common. That yellow-eyed bastard took my parents, too.”

It’s the first thing he’s told her about his own life. Mary is going through exactly the same thing, and she still doesn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

He looks into her eyes. “That’s why you can’t make that deal. I want John back too, but there’s gotta be some other way. I’ve lost enough to that demon already. I won’t lose you.”

Mary frowns. “You’ve known me for about five days. Is that supposed to be some kind of pick-up line?”

“No! God, no. I just – I guess it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I care about what happens to you. You and John. You’re important to me. In a totally, _totally_ not-hitting-on-anyone way.”

She can feel that he really means it, means it desperately. She’s important to him. It scares her that she doesn’t understand why.

-

“Bring him back,” Dean says. “You brought me back from Hell, right? So I’m pretty sure God or your angel boss or whoever wants me alive, and that’s gonna be tough if I’m never born.”

“I am not in what you might call my native time,” Castiel says. “My powers are... limited.”

“Then talk to some native angel! Talk to Seventies Cas; that’d be a fun conversation.”

Castiel frowns slightly. Dean hasn’t known him for long, but he’s getting the impression that ‘slight frown’ is about the only expression this guy has. “I would prefer not to interact with myself. My past selves are generally intolerable.”

Okay, good to know humans aren’t the only ones who look back and cringe. If Dean ever met himself as a teenager, he’d probably punch himself in the face. Might do that if he met himself at any age, actually. But this really isn’t helpful right now. “I don’t give an angelic ass what you would _prefer_. My father is dead before he had a chance to _be_ my father, which means my brother is never gonna exist unless Yellow-Eyes gets his deal and fucks up our entire family. Or you help, and maybe we can put an end to all this. I mean, isn’t this why you sent me back?”

Castiel says nothing for a while; just stares into the middle distance. Eventually, he speaks. “My instructions are not to interfere.”

“Fine,” Dean says. “I guess it makes sense that you can’t change the past. Oh, except for the whole sending-a-guy-back-in-time thing. Screw you, Cas.”

-

She doesn’t know what Dean’s been doing, but it isn’t hard to see he’s pissed-off when he comes back to the motel room. His expression softens when he sees her, though.

“Look,” he says, “I’m going crazy stuck in one place. We can stay if you don’t feel like moving, but...”

“You want to start hunting again,” she says.

“I’m not gonna ask you to help,” he says.

She’s already on her feet. She’s never liked hunting, but it’s something to keep her mind off things, and that’s what she needs right now. “Let’s go.”

-

She flicks through her dad’s journal, finds his hunting contacts, goes to a payphone. The first two people she calls ask how her parents are, and she’s shaking when she hangs up.

“Mary.” Dean taps her on the shoulder. “I can take this.”

She wants to tell him she’s fine, but she isn’t. He must know she isn’t.

She gives him the journal and walks unsteadily away. Braces herself against the car John bought. Presses her face into her hands.

He comes over a few minutes later. “Hardecker thinks he has something. Lead on a poltergeist in Arkansas.”

She doesn’t answer. She knows he’s looking at her, but she can’t make herself look back at him.

“We don’t move until you’re ready, okay?” he says, quietly.

Maybe they can save someone, she tells herself. Maybe they can keep someone else from going through the nightmare she’s in right now.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay. I’m ready.”

-

It’s easier than she would have expected to get back into it, knock on people’s doors, give fake names. Maybe it’s because she wants to be anyone but Mary Campbell right now.

She fights the poltergeist back from a couple of kids while Dean cleanses the house, and just for a moment she doesn’t feel like a dead person walking.

“Those kids are still alive because of you,” Dean says, when it’s over. “You understand that? We did something good here.”

“Are you trying to get me to come around on hunters?”

He shrugs, gives her a quick smile. “Maybe.”

“I know the world needs hunters, Dean,” she says. “And I’m glad you’re out doing what you do. Just... not for me. Not for my family.”

Dean looks away. “Yeah, makes sense.” He’s quiet for a moment. “We make a good team, though.”

He’s right; they work together well. And it does feel good to know that she’s saved someone. Those children will grow up, have lives because of them.

“Did you look at the papers today?” she asks. “Four locked-room deaths in Minnesota.”

-

Dean is constantly asking her questions about herself: where she grew up, what she does with her spare time, how old she was when she started hunting. Once, when they’re staking out a warehouse they think might be the lair of a fully-turned rugaru, he starts to ask a question – “What do you... in the future, you know, what do you want...” – but he can’t finish it. Maybe he realises how painful it is for her to think about the future right now.

He asks her whether she likes Led Zeppelin instead, and seems so offended by her ambivalent response that she has to laugh. It feels like the first time she’s laughed since that night.

“It’s okay, baby,” he says, stroking the car’s dashboard. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

Sometimes she doesn’t know whether he’s staying for her or the Impala. “I don’t think the car really cares about my taste in music.”

“Tell me you’re an AC/DC fan, at least,” he says.

“Sorry, never heard of them.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t have. They’re gonna be big, though. First chance you get, put money on them getting to number one.”

“Okay, now you have to tell me about yourself,” she says. “I feel like I’ve given you my whole life story.”

Something guarded comes over his face. “What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know. Anything. Do you ever eat any vegetables, for a start?”

The corner of his mouth twitches; it looks like he’s trying to fight down a smirk and failing miserably. “Who are you, my mom?”

“Seriously, though. How long have you been hunting? Do you do it on your own?” She’s been wondering whether that’s why he’s stayed around for so long. Is he just lonely? Hunting with her family was bad enough; she can’t imagine doing it alone, facing monsters down with no back-up, having to lie to everyone you know.

He looks down. “Don’t say anything, but I was raised in the business,” he says. “Never exactly had a full address book, but I’ve had family around. My brother. And my dad, until... you know. Then...” He shrugs, awkwardly. “Something happened. I was on my own for... a long time. Only met back up with my brother a few weeks ago.”

“What was it like?” Mary asks. “Being alone.” It’s what she’s facing, after all.

“It was hell,” Dean says, and then he laughs like he’s said something funny.

Shouldn’t have asked; the answer was never going to be something she wanted to hear. “So why aren’t you with your brother now?”

Dean frowns, staring out through the windshield. “It’s... complicated. Pretty sure you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Mary raises her eyebrows. “You remember I’m a hunter, right?”

Dean shrugs.

“Okay, you have to tell me now. I want to know what this unbelievable thing is.”

“Maybe later,” Dean says. “Point is, I’m with you. And I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re okay.”

Mary hesitates. “That... might take a while.”

“Then I’ll be around for a while,” Dean says. “Pretty sure I’m not needed anywhere else at the moment.”

Mary smiles a little. It still feels strange, smiling, like it’s something she’s not allowed to do after everything she’s been through. But it’s getting easier.

The demon took everyone from her. John, her parents, everyone she loved. When he offered her the deal to bring John back, it didn’t seem like a choice at all. She knows she’s not strong enough to face life completely alone.

But she isn’t alone. She has Dean.

Maybe she’ll be okay.

-

They’ve been hunting together for a while now, and Mary is starting to think realistically, even if it hurts.

She needs to know the situation. Dean is always talking about resurrecting John, but she needs to know whether it’s something that might really happen or whether it’s just a dream. Maybe it’d be easiest to put John behind her and move on, start a new life. She has to know. She’ll never be able to let go of him otherwise.

“Dean,” she says. They’re in a motel room in Nebraska, cleaning their weapons on one of the beds. “Do you really believe we’ll find a way to bring John back? Are we just going to keep travelling around and hope that the solution falls into our laps? I mean, what’s the plan here?”

Dean looks sharply at her. “You’re not thinking about that deal, right?”

She shakes her head. “I’m starting to think I’ll survive if he’s really gone. I just... want to know whether I’ll have to. Have you found anything?”

For a while, Dean doesn’t speak.

“I’ve been trying,” he says, eventually. “I talked to a crossroads demon. She wouldn’t take my soul.”

Mary stares at him. “You – what?”

Dean tried to _sell his soul_ for John? Hanging around to look out for her is one thing, but this...

Dean shifts. “And... okay, you won’t believe me on this one.”

“I’m still not sure I believe the last one.”

“I spoke to an angel,” Dean says.

There’s a silence.

“An angel,” Mary says.

“Yeah, they’re real. And they can bring people back. Only problem is they’re kind of dicks. Or at least the one I know is.”

“You _personally know_ an angel.”

Dean shrugs. “I know he’s called Castiel and he doesn’t give a shit about helping us, but that’s about it. Anyway, he’s a dead-end.”

“So what’s left?” Mary asks.

Dean is silent for a moment.

“We’ll find something,” he says.

-

Mary doesn’t have much experience with performing summoning rituals, and, for obvious reasons, she has even less experience with summoning angels. Still, she has a name and her father’s collection of ancient books, and that seems like a good place to start.

She’s halfway through the incantation when a man appears in front of her. He wears a trenchcoat and no expression, and she knows instantly that he isn’t human, and he isn’t something she’s ever seen before.

He glances down at the devil’s trap on the floor. She drew it just in case she ended up accidentally summoning a demon instead. She finds herself strangely embarrassed about it now. Does he think she was trying to imprison him? She probably looks like someone trying to catch a rhinoceros in a mousetrap.

“Castiel,” she says.

“Mary Campbell,” he says. “It is an honour to meet such a significant figure in human history.”

She... really doesn’t know what to say to that.

“I come only to give you a warning,” he says. “Do not attempt to summon me here. My form in this time has no vessel. Looking upon him will cause you great harm.”

“What?” she asks, and then, “Wait, ‘in this time’?”

Castiel averts his eyes. “I should leave.”

“Don’t,” Mary says. “Please.”

She thinks she sees him hesitate. It’s hard to tell. She doesn’t know a lot about angelic body language.

“Why did you wish to call me here?” he asks.

“Is it true you can bring people back from the dead?”

“We are not to raise the dead without specific orders,” Castiel says. “And those are extremely rare. Dean Winchester was a special case.”

It’s like being hit by a truck. “Winchester? _Dean_ Winchester? Dean _Winchester_?”

He’s John’s brother. Oh, God, it explains everything. It’s why he cares so much about John; it’s why she’s the only person with matching chromosomes he won’t flirt with. There’s even something of John in his face. Why didn’t he tell her?

Wait. John’s brother is a _hunter_?

And he was raised from the dead? By angels?

Okay, maybe it doesn’t explain everything. She has no idea what the hell is going on.

“If you could raise Dean,” she says, her voice shaking a little, “why not his brother?”

Castiel tilts his head, frowning. “Dean raised his brother himself.”

It can’t be real. It can’t be real. “What? When? Where is he?”

“He is not yet born,” Castiel says. “He will be raised in approximately thirty-four years’ time.”

Mary stares at him. Castiel stares back.

“I don’t understand,” she says. It’s hard to speak; her throat feels like someone is tightening a wire around it.

“I have tried to answer your questions plainly,” Castiel says.

There’s something starting to whisper in her mind. A possibility. Or an impossibility. But she’s speaking to an angel, and last night she would have said that was impossible too.

-

When Dean drifts into half-consciousness, Mary is sitting on the end of his bed and watching him.

“God, don’t do that,” he mumbles, dragging a hand over his face. “It’s creepy.”

“Dean,” she says, and there’s something in the way she says his name that wakes him up. It isn’t the way Mary Campbell says it. It’s the way Mary Winchester says it, the gentle way she always said his name when he was a kid.

He sits up. Doesn’t say anything for a moment. She’s still just looking at him.

“How did you find out?” he asks.

“Castiel told me,” she says. “Or he told me enough for me to piece it together.”

Goddamn angel. “He says he can’t interfere, and then he tells you who I am? Like _that’s_ not gonna change anything?”

Mary shrugs. “I don’t think he knew how much he was telling me. I’m not sure he understands the concept of keeping things quiet.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean mutters. “I guess maybe I should’ve told you myself. I just...”

He couldn’t. He couldn’t disappoint her like that.

“You became a hunter,” she says, quietly.

Dean can’t look her in the eye. “Sorry.”

She shakes her head. “Don’t be. _I’m_ sorry. I never wanted you to have this life.”

“I know,” he mumbles. Not like he’s ever going to forget her saying it.

“But I guess you’d be a different person without it, and the person you are...” She hesitates. “If you’re really my son... I think that’s something I can be proud of.”

That makes Dean look at her. He tries to speak and finds he can’t.

She smiles a little. “This is so weird. I mean, you’re older than me. But I mean it. You’ve basically kept me stable all this time. Even if we’re going to have to talk about your eating habits when you’re actually my son.” She tilts her head. “So, that brother of yours... is he here? Can I see him?”

He shakes his head. “I wish you could.”

Why is he the only one Castiel sent back here? Why can’t Sam meet Mom?

But it’s okay. He just has to find a way to bring John back, something that doesn’t involve Yellow-Eyes, and then Sam will grow up with both his parents.

More than ever, he knows that he can’t screw this up. He can’t lose his mom again. Not now that he’s finally getting to know her.

-

Dean wakes the next night, and Mary’s bed is empty.

The Impala is gone.

-

He steals a Ford and drives to Lawrence.

The dirt of John’s grave is freshly disturbed. He knows what’s happened, knew even before he saw the turned earth, but he digs down anyway. Just to make sure any hope he might still have is dead.

When he turns around, she’s there. He doesn’t know how long she’s been watching.

“You made the deal?” Dean asks in a whisper.

She looks away. “I’m sorry, Dean.”

He can see it all unfolding again in front of him – the demon will kill Mom, it’ll kill Dad, it’ll... what did it say, it’ll bleed in Sammy’s mouth, what the hell is that about – and this time-travel thing was a _chance_ , one he’ll probably never have again, and he can’t believe he screwed this up. “No, no, we were going to find another way, we were going to stop it—”

“Dean,” Mary says quietly, meeting his eyes, and she’s so beautiful in the late-autumn sunlight, and her death hurts more than it ever did before. “I don’t think there _is_ another way. And if John... if I didn’t bring him back, you’d never exist.”

Dean feels like he can’t breathe. So it’s because of him. She made the deal because of him. She’s going to die because of him.

“So I don’t regret it,” she says, with a half-smile. “I’ll have John, and you, and your brother. That has to be worth whatever the demon wants.”

That’s what she says, but he can see the tears in her eyes. She knows her son came back from the future and told her not to do this. She must know there’s nothing but pain at the end of this road. But she’s going down it anyway. For him.

The things that happened to him down in Hell were easier to deal with than this.

And then there’s a rush of wind, and when he turns he sees Castiel beside him. From the way Mary takes a half-step back, Dean knows she can see him too.

“Dean,” Castiel says. “It is time to return.”

“No,” Dean says. “I have to fix this.” Maybe there’s no way, but he has to _try_.

Castiel hesitates. “I... am sorry.”

Dean looks at Mary. It’s probably going to be the last time he ever sees her. “At least let me—”

-

He wakes in a dark motel room, and nothing’s changed.

He barely listens to Castiel telling him that he couldn’t have stopped it, destiny can’t be altered, all roads lead to the same destination. Dean still feels like he killed her. He might as well have pinned her to the nursery ceiling himself.

And then he notices that Sam isn’t in the room.

-

It’s a long time later when Cas sends them after Anna, back to 1978. It’s not a great situation – ‘rogue angel trying to kill your parents in the past’ is about as far from great as you can get – but Dean catches himself smiling anyway. Maybe they can set history straight this time; maybe they can’t. What he knows is he’s going to see Mom again, after way too long without a real goodbye. And maybe, just for a little while, he can have his whole family around him.

“C’mon,” he says to Sam. “Let’s go check in on the folks.”


End file.
